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What to do if your cat doesn’t like wet food

Many veterinarians recommend feeding your cat a high quality wet food diet in order to maintain healthy kidney and urinary tract function. However, even the priciest and highest quality cat foods are worthless if your cat won’t eat it! Here are a few troubleshooting tips to help you determine why your cat may dislike wet foods.

It could be the texture

Just as humans enjoy crunching on potato chips, some cats simply prefer a little crunch in their food. Moreover, the domestic cat’s wild ancestors would consume their prey whole, bones and all! Therefore, mushy food could be unappealing to your cat’s wild instincts.

You can try sprinkling ⅛ of a cup of your cat’s favorite dry food on top of the wet food to help entice your cat to eat. Likewise, you may find that your cat may prefer morsels in gravy over a finely ground pate, or dryer wet food that holds its form better than one that’s soupy and spreads on the plate when served.

Variety is the spice of life

Many cat parents complain that their cat will lose interest in the food that they seemed to enjoy not long ago. Not to worry, pickiness in cats is only natural. Since in the wild, a cat’s source of nutrition comes from a meat-based diet, seeking a variety of prey is how cats ensure that they get a broad range of nutrients.

It’s okay to buy a variety of flavors within a brand, and you may even have to buy a variety of brands to keep your kitty happy. Some pet food manufacturers offer variety packs, and some pet stores offer discounts for buying bulk amounts of food even if you mix and match.

It’s all about presentation

If your cat is eating well on a dry diet and you’ve taken your cat to the vet to rule out health problems, it may not be the flavor or texture of the food that’s turning kitty away from the wet food. Consider feeding your kitty on a plate or puzzle feeder.

Because cat’s whiskers are highly sensitive, your kitty may not want to eat wet food if they’re suffering from whisker fatigue because their whiskers can be irritated as they drag through the wet food. You can easily remedy this situation by feeding on a plate instead of a bowl. For kitties who are bored with simply being presented their food on a platter, you might want to switch it up and offer a puzzle feeder to reactivate those wild instincts.

Do you have a special feeding routine for your cat? Be sure to tell your pet sitter! Our friendly sitters follow your feeding instructions to the letter. Send us an email to be matched with one of our friendly pet sitters today!

—Candace Elise Hoes is a pet sitter and blogger at Katie’s Kitty. She is a graduate of the MFA Writing Program at California College of the Arts.